


Chameleons

by MissTyler



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Chameleon Arch, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fobwatched Doctor, Fobwatched Rose
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-01-22 09:14:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12478244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissTyler/pseuds/MissTyler
Summary: Based on the prompt on Timepetalsprompts: "The doctor and Rose have both to use he chameleon arch, but without a companion to bring them back, they spend years being two completely different people until one of them opens their watch by accident. Now they have to deal with the consequences of the life they made for themselves while humans."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Both excited and scared to start this, let's see where it takes us.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now edited by the amazing sequencefairy

    Marion Smith was already up when the alarm went off. It was really for John; he would go to bed way too late to wake up in time on his own. She made tea and toast for them and started the children’s breakfast. Marion heard John walking to Daisy’s room to get her up. Daisy would probably already be awake; she loved going to the kindergarten, and everyone loved having her there.

A few minutes later, Daisy showed up in the kitchen, already in her little uniform, with a familiar wide smile on her face.

"Good morning mummy" Daisy sat on the chair, her feet bouncing excitedly up and down in the air.

"’morning love." said Marion, serving her daughter’s breakfast and kissing her forehead.

John followed a bit later with their half-awake son in his arms. Jamie was a sweet, brown-haired, three year old boy that hadn’t inherited his mother’s ability to wake up and be ready for the day so soon. John greeted his wife with a kiss and sat with the kids at the table. He helped his son to eat without making too much of a mess. Later, John took Daisy to school.

The house was usually empty during the day. Marion wasn’t used to staying there alone, but with her vacation ending, the kids back to their own thing and John back to work, it was pretty inevitable. After taking Jamie to daycare she found herself reorganizing toys and going through family albums. Well, their small family albums. Since her husband and herself were only children, without parents or other close relatives, the books were full of pictures of their children and the first years of her relationship with John. She knew nobody did that anymore, that everything was on the computer, but without the pictures of anyone else in her family for her to remember, she felt the enormous need to do it.

Finished with the albums, but still feeling the need to be doing something, she took herself to the attic where they kept boxes and boxes of useless bits and bobs.. Going through one of the dusty boxes, she found John’s old dream diary; a collection of dreams he used to have of him being a space traveler or something. Since they moved here, they were less frequent.. His new notebook still had several clean pages.

She ran her eyes over the pages and stopped when saw the drawing he had done of her. Of course she was in his dreams, he said. _Of Course._ Marion felt her heart fill with love once more. It was a fairly common feeling when she thought about her husband.

After digging a bit more, she decided clean up the place. Maybe she could turn this into another room, an office or something. Yep, that would keep her busy until the vacation ended.

Marion took one of the boxes downstairs carefully, you never knew when you’d step on a toy that came out of nowhere in a house with two kids.

_Find the watch_

_Open the watch_

She jumped and dropped the box on her feet, terrified. Marion looked around, searching for the voice she was sure she’d heard, and it took a moment to realize how much the voice sounded like hers. Was she _that_ bored? Her brain could at least have the decency to come up with a much creepier voice other than her own.

 

***********

 

A few weeks later, John decided that it wasn’t normal to have nightmares so frequently when you are a five year old girl. Jamie himself was waking up in the middle of the night and joining them in the bed frightened of something.

"I think our house is hunted by ghosts" Daisy whispered to him the night when he asked why she was so scared. In the moment he thought it all would pass when the Halloween was gone, after all, Daisy had other moments like that, clowns had been the last guilt ones. But the holiday came and go, and the nightmares didn’t.

 

***********

 

In the morning Daisy joined her mum while she was throwing away the last boxes at the attic. James and his dad had used the weekend to go to a play date with two other kids from the daycare and their parents.

"What is this?" The little girl weaved at her a metallic stick with a blue half circle in on of the endings.

"Uh, I don’t know love." said Marion, feeling the strange urge of ignore everything coming from where her daughter was and focus on where she’d put her easel "Probably one of dad’s old college things."

"Can I keep it?"

"Sure."

That seemed to make her happy, and she continued digging her little fingers in those mysterious boxes that she wasn’t allowed to play with before. "What about this?"

"Yes?"

"This." The little girl weaved the object at her mum, making it almost hard to see.

"It’s a watch, love."

_Open the watch_

Daisy struggled with the object "I can’t it’s stuck."

"What?"

"I can’t open it. Can you do it mummy?"

"Of course." she took the watch in her hand, also struggling with the thing "The bloody thing won’t open." her accent slipped, as if she was born in the south instead of...

"We’re home!" John announced as he entered the house with Jamie

"We’re home!" the little boy mirrored his dad

In her pocket, the object was quickly forgotten, for Marion it was as if it was never there. Downstairs Jamie was still jumping on his feet, ready to tell everyone about his day

"Hello baby, did you have fun?"

"The was dinosaurs!"

"That’s so cool!"

 

***********

 

_Open the watch,_

_Wake the Doctor_

 

Marion open her eyes and in a jump, sat on her bed, startled. She looked down at John, sound asleep next to her, as if he was the one who said the words.

 

_Open the watch_

_Wake the Doctor_

 

Marion got up and noticed they came from the pile of clothes she took off before bed. Even though the strange need of ignore it started to emerge, her curiosity overcame it. It was the clock Daisy found earlier in the day, a golden object covered in strange circles, dust and rust. Like her daughter said, it wouldn’t open easily.

 

_Open the watch_

_Find the Doctor_

_Wake the Doctor_

 

That was her voice again, with a different accent than hers, and more urgent. Almost begging.

With another push the watch finally open, unleashing a golden cloud that entered Marion’s body. Triggering the painful molecular transformation to happen, and the locked memories and feelings to come out.

Unlike her prediction before using the Chameleon Arch, the first feelings that Rose felt as herself wasn’t in anyway comforting or of relief, but a profound fear and despair.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose wakes up the Doctor and they look for the Tardis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This wasn't, in anyway, beted. All mistakes are mine.

As the Tardis disappears and they leave Donna on earth, the reality hits Rose like a thousand bricks.

There is so much to process: never seeing her mother again, having a little brother or sister, never returning to the Powel State, and being immune to particle that was dangerous even to Time Lords.   
  
“Rose?” she hears the Doctor. He sounded like he called her name before.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“I was saying, maybe we could do some tests.” the worry in his eyes weren’t masquerading his casual tone when he asked that “Unless you’re tired. Yes. No, of course you’re tired, it was a big- no, huge day today, you probably want to go to bed. I’ll just-”  
  
Weirdly, even though emotionally exhausted, Rose felt like she could run a marathon and win the gold in the Olympics “It’s fine. I really don’t think I’ll be able to sleep with so many questions in my mind.”  
  
The whole thing with the Huon particles had affected her a lot. Even her mental connection with the Tardis, which she assumed, was common, has now a whole different perspective to her. Was she supposed to have it? The Doctor himself said humans aren’t telepathic, at least not yet. Is she some kind of alien now?

She sat still as the Doctor collected her blood and placed the tube in some kind of alien computer. She couldn’t really understand all the circles and lines that showed up in the screen, which was unsettling on it’s own, since she has always been able to read everything in the Tardis besides the screen in the console.

The Doctor was still looking at the circles a few minutes later, almost as he didn’t believe in it. “I know you can read faster than that.” she smiled “What’s the matter?”

“I- I’m so sorry. Rose, I-”

“What is it?”

“Your DNA, it’s different. It seems to have suffered some kind of mutation.”

Mutation? Her mind was filled with images of the X-Men, even though she knew the reality wasn’t as glamorous or nice enough to give her superpowers instead of...

“But I don’t feel different, what’s different?”

“You wouldn’t feel anything, not yet at least.” his voice lowered, seemed almost angry, but she knew it wasn’t at her. “But a few years from now, when you’re still here, and your friends, and your family, everyone you care about... are not. You’re going to feel... I’m so sorry Rose, I never meant to- If it wasn’t for me you-”

“Doctor...”

She jumped the table and brought him to her arms. This wasn't right, the Doctor knew he was the one who was supposed to be comforting her, not vice versa. But he would never say no to a hug from Rose Tyler.

Also, he knew too much had happened in the few weeks, not only today. He knew it could be too much for her to process, and couldn’t blame her in anyway. So he enjoyed her arms around him for as long as he could, before the penny dropped and she started to hate him.

********

  
It took only a few minutes to find the second fob watch. Like hers, his was covered in old gallifreyan, and was made of some expensive metal. It wasn’t sending her any messages, but she could feel him there, could he already understand the situation?

She walked all the way back to John and Marion’s room. It was still dark outside, and consequently the room too, but she could see almost clearly his face. It was the Doctor’s face, except a bit older, with a short beard and without the sideburns. Wasn’t really the Doctor.

“John?”, she whispered, almost hoping he didn’t wake up so she could think through about what she was about to do. And he didn’t move. “John.” More forcefully. “You need to wake up”.

Walking back to the room the coward thought of just asking him to open the watch without any explanation crossed her mind for a second, looking at him now she realized she couldn’t let that be it.

Rose tries to go through everything he might need to know, starting by asking him to try to believe in her when she says she’s sorry, and how she wishes she could let him live the rest of his life with his wife, but it wouldn’t be fair to the universe. She tells him about the Family of Blood, the chameleon arch, the Time Lords and the Bad Wolf. He seems to be listening, but not to be convinced. Rose's not sure what else she can do for him, he seems worried when she gives him the watch, and then opens it anyway. Maybe he didn’t expect anything to happen, maybe she didn’t know how to read that man.

It takes about a minute for the glow to be absorbed by him. And he sits there for a second, in his striped pjs in the bed. Then he looks at her, his expression mirroring hers when she came back, thousands of thoughts in his mind at the same time.

“Doctor?” Rose tries as her hand reaches for his face

He seems to notice her for the first time, and wastes no time before pulling her into his embrace. It’s a relieve really, it always is, being in his arms. For a moment it felt like there was nothing else happening, nothing wrong.

“Doctor, I-”

“Mum?” A little voice comes from the open door in the room “I had a nightmare.” She walks shyly to them, holding a small blanket with her. “Can I sleep with you?”

The Doctor let go of her and stares at the girl, the similarities between them almost overwhelming. The same hair colour, the same nose, the same eyes, the same mouth, the same face. It was like someone made a tiny female version of him. Maybe putting a grown man's face in a little girl sounds a little strange, but it surprisingly worked.

The Doctor was the first to break the silence.

“Maybe we should get up.”

“But it’s still dark."

Instead of answering the girl, he decided to focus on Rose, still silent in bed as the little girl got cosy in the sheets. “We have to find the Tardis.”

That seemed to startle Rose into action. She jumped from the bed to the closet's direction, joining him as they searched for something to dress besides the cotton pajamas they were both wearing.

“Where are we, by the way?!”

“Don’t you remember?”, he stopped, some jeans he had found still in his knees, and a worried look in his face.

“My memories are... blurry. And... messy.” She gestured with her hands “I remember some other stuff though.”

He nodded, “Cardiff.”

“Really? Cardiff?”

“Well, we landed in London, and then they decided to come here.”

“Why would _anyone_...” She continued to mumble to herself as they finished getting dressed in record time.

As the Doctor disappeared in the bathroom, Rose's mind cleared enough to remind her of something important.

“Daisy?” she whispered, trying to wake up the girl, she was 87% sure that was her name.

“Hm.” She mumbled with her eyes still closed

“You need to wake up. I need you to tell me where did you put that metal stick you found earlier. The one with the blue thing on the top, you remember?”

“Uh... I don't know.”

Rose groans and gets up, “Come on, let’s find out.” She reaches for Daisy's hand “and get you dressed too”.

When the Doctor leaves the bathroom, without a beard and with copious amount of hair gel in his head, Rose and Daisy are nowhere to be seen. He tries to focus on finding the Tardis, on feeling her. She is too distant for him to feel her completely, but she's alive and well, he can feel that. At least in the bathroom there was something to distract him of thinking things through. He leaves the room to find the girls.

Rose decides that letting a five year old choose her clothes alone might not be her brightest moment. She finds the Sonic after going through a gigantic box of toys in Daisy’s room, and the girl is not done yet.

The room is a mess of toys and clothes when Rose finally finds herself zipping up the little girl's jacket and the Doctor shows up at the door with a sleeping toddler in his arms.

She’s speechless for a moment.

“Ready?”

“Yeah...” she breaths out “Yeah.”

They leave the house early enough to see the sun rise outside, the Doctor seems to have found the car keys some time before.

“Wait” she stops after open the door for Daisy “Can you drive?”

“Yep.” The Doctor answers as he fights with Jamie’s car seat.

“... Are you sure?”

“What does _that_ mean?”

“Well-"

“I'll let you know that I am a brilliant driver, Rose Tyler. Even had a car at some point.”

She stares at him, a worried look in her face, then at the kids and then at him again.

“... ok.”

They drive all the way to the train station and abandon the car at some point. The kids that were mostly quiet in the car are now fully awake and make them buy snacks. The Doctor takes the Sonic with him for a second and returns with lots of candy bars and some train tickets.

Inside the train the kids are busy with candy, and Rose and the Doctor try to come up with a plan to find the Tardis in the next pair of seats, Rose by the window and the Doctor by the hallway.

He cleans up his pockets at the table in front of them, it's mostly random pieces of something mechanical, his sonic screwdriver and something that catches her attention.

“My key!” She grabs it “Where did you find it? Actually, where did you find all of this?”

“It was among other stuff in the nightstand next to the bed. The car keys were there too. The pieces were in the office, apparently John was some kind of engineer. There was more, but these stupid little pockets...”

“Are you going to use those to find the Tardis? Doesn’t look much.”

“Well, Rose Tyler, you might have also forgotten that I am brilliant.”

An idea of smile comes and goes as fast in her face. And she lets him work.

In the car they drove in silence, which was not only insanely strange for the Doctor, but it was also an uncomfortable silence. She never experienced that with the Doctor before, it wasn’t a pleasant feeling.

Jamie was the first to lost interest in the chocolate, which he was wearing in his face, hands, arms and shirt.

“Oh no.” Rose whispered

The Doctor seemed to notice her distress, and came to her rescue.

“Right. Why don’t we clean you up.” He looks over to the next seat “Maybe you too, Daisy.”

And he leaves with their kids to a small restroom at the end of the hallway. Oh my god, their kids. Are they really? It wasn’t even their bodies, it was two different people, two different human people that knew nothing about them, or who they were. But the thought of the kids being anywhere else but with them felt wrong. She remembers John’s face looking at her earlier, so much love in his eyes. He was a person, she knows that. He and Marion were. And they were completely unaware of their fate or their kid's. Bloody hell, she felt like she owns them to look after the children. She feels like she killed them.

Eventually the Doctor returns with Jamie and Daisy, now cleaner than before. They give up seating alone and join them. Daisy sits in the Doctor’s lap, across Rose in the table, and looking at the window; and Jamie curls up in Rose’s lap, a thumb in his mouth and distracted by the Doctor’s quick movements with the sonic and the pieces.

It takes a little over two hours and a half for them to get in London, and about that for the Doctor to make his Tardis detector. “Well if I had more to work with it would only take a few minutes". The children are very excited to run around the town, they never came here before. The quick thought of wanting to bring them here eventually crossed her mind. It’s an old thought, she realises. Marion thought of this before.

Rose thinks of going to a friends house, even her mum's old flat, but she has no idea when they are, and the last thing they need now is a paradox. Or one of these monsters from when she tried to save her dad.

Jamie and Daisy don’t run very fast, so either they walk or run with them in their arms, consequently taking most of the day to find the Tardis. She’s in this alley in Walworth, she’s like she remembers, like they just left home for chips, and came back with some bananas. Except this time they left home to become humans and came back with kids.

The Doctor quickly unlocks the door, still holding Daisy's hand and they all come in. The monitor in the console lights up, as the rest of the room, but it’s the Doctor himself that greets them in the screen.

“Hello Sarah Jane! How are you? We are not so great, you see, we're in danger. This group of aliens called The Family of Blood is coming for us, to use us to not only increase their lives but to rule the universe if they can. So we need your help. We're going to disguise ourselves as humans for while. Exactly three months. We need you to look after us and wake us up when the time has come. I’m so sorry we have to drag you into this, but we don’t have much longer. Rose has already gone through the Chameleon Ark, and then it will be me. So, here are some recommendations for when you find us: first, our consciences will be inside these two fob watches, keep them safe; second, Don’t let me eat pears, they are nasty; Third, don’t let us interfere in established events in time; and four, but most important: Don’t let me hurt Rose. Thank you. Good luck.”

The video ends, the screen light fades away and everything inside the Tardis looks he same. Except the feeling Rose knew the Doctor had in him too, the feeling of, _what now?_


End file.
